Changes to Thompson School District budget process ahead

While Thompson School District officials await information about state funding and the position of the 2013-14 budget, they've made some changes to the development process.

This year, there will be neither a Budget Proposal Team nor an online survey where community members submit cost-cutting suggestions. Instead, the board of education will be in the "front row" of the budget process for 2013-14, Chief Financial Officer Steve Towne said.

"This board, I think, is ready for some closer, one-on-one with administration and is feeling like perhaps the Budget Proposal Team keeps the board a little bit more at arm's length than at this point and time they would really like to be," Towne said.

Board to replace team

For the past several years, a Budget Proposal Team comprised of staff, administration and community members has met to develop budget options. The options are then presented to members of the board of education, who adopt a final budget.

Superintendent Stan Scheer said that for this year, the board should have more involvement earlier. They will essentially replace the Budget Proposal Team.

"I like to see the board being directly involved in budget planning and I think this will give them the opportunity to do that," Scheer said. "They're the elected representatives of the community and they have a strong context with budget planning.

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With representation on the Budget Proposal Team from licensed, classified, administrative and cabinet staff, there had also been concerns that the group was moving away from its focus.

"I think in some ways the Budget Proposal Team previously was becoming too political," board president Sharon Olson said. "To try something new may not be bad. This is not new to education, it's new to how things have been happening in the district."

Since last month, Towne has provided the board with hour-long school finance and district budget development presentations during work sessions. Those will continue, Scheer said, to ensure that the board is informed every step of the way.

As superintendent of other districts, Scheer said he experienced budget development both ways, with and without a type of proposal team.

"If we're going to have a conversation about the budget, I like to start with the board and if the board thinks they need additional input, they can direct me to do that," he said.

Olson said the board wouldn't take any action before consulting both the community and other groups such as the Thompson Education Association.

"It's not like they're being cut out, just instead of having the first draft at it, the board will have the first draft at it," she said.

Laurie Shearer, president of the TEA, said she wasn't opposed to the change and said the association will continue to speak up at board meetings.

Input opportunities

Last January, more than 400 people went to the district's website and completed a survey on how to the balance the budget. As in years past, they offered hundreds of suggestions on how the district could cut costs.

"There was some good thinking on some of the things that came through, and certainly we are not at a loss for thoughts and ideas about how to resolve this," Towne said. "With all due respect to the community, while we want to be aware of what their heartbeat is, the people in administration are here because they have background and experience in these issues."

Olson agreed that sifting through the suggestions increased the workload for budget managers and said there was a lot of duplication of what had already been suggested.

That's not to say that the survey wasn't successful in gauging public opinion on some issues. For example, more than 40 percent of those who responded last year suggested furloughs, which were ultimately adopted in the 2012-13 budget.

"We received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of suggestions and what we did was looked for themes in those suggestions," Towne said.

If the survey isn't used to feel the pulse of the community, how can people voice their opinion? By law, there will be a public hearing prior to the adoption of the budget, but Towne said there needs to be some conversation around other formats for community input.

"We certainly want the community to have an understanding of what we're doing and why we're doing it," he said.

Scheer sees board meetings and work sessions as an ideal place for the community to come forward and discuss their thoughts and concerns. The policy for work sessions was recently amended to include pubic comment.

"There's plenty of opportunity for access to the board if people have a particular area they'd like to talk about," Scheer said.

Other opportunities include emailing staff with suggestions, and Scheer said a more direct approach could remedy a credibility problem with surveys, where people sometimes feel ignored if their suggestions weren't implemented.

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